What about the environment I grew up in?

The environment we grow up in and the quality of care we receive can affect the way our personality develops. You may be more likely to develop personality disorder if you've experienced:

an unstable or chaotic family life, such as living with a parent who is an alcoholic or who struggles to manage a mental health problem

little or no support from your caregiver – this may be especially hard if you experienced a traumatic event or situation

a lack of support or bad experiences during your school life, in your peer group or wider community

If you had a difficult childhood or experiences like these, you might have developed certain beliefs about how people think and how relationships work. You might have developed certain strategies for coping which aren't helpful in your adult life.

How might my early experiences cause personality disorder?

Our experiences growing up can affect our personality in later life. Difficult or traumatic experiences may lead to personality disorder, such as:

Not everyone who experiences a traumatic situation will develop these problems. The way you and others reacted to it, alongside the support and care you received to help you cope, will have made a lot of difference.

Similarly, not everyone who develops a personality disorder will have had a traumatic experience.

I have narcissistic borderline personality disorder. At first it was difficult to accept that the problem was essentially me, my personality. But then being able to put it into perspective as a developmental flaw was much easier to accept – that it was simply the way I'd developed in response to my environment and the situations I'd experienced.

Could it be genetic?

Some elements of our personality are inherited. We are born with different temperaments – for example, babies vary in how active they are, their attention span and how they adapt to change.

Some experts believe inheritance may play a part in the development of personality disorder.

This information was published in August 2016. We will revise it in 2019.